Some people just want things to work; Lillian Wong goes one more.
The Grand Canyon University mechanical engineering senior wants to dive in there, pull things apart, shimmy them back together, weld, see sparks fly, and go hands in on hands-on projects. She doesn’t JUST want things to work. She wants to know HOW things work – and how all those things work together in a gloriously calibrated system.
It’s what made her the perfect choice for a recent internship she completed with Tempe, Arizona-based Benchmark Electronics.
“It’s kind of funny how I got the internship,” said Wong, who will be among the first students to graduate from the College of Engineering and Technology’s mechanical engineering/aerospace emphasis this spring.
Wong applied for the internship through GCU Career Services’ Career Connections, the job-posting portal for students, but received an email that the listing was supposed to have been taken down since the position already had been filled. But then she got a call from Benchmark’s career coordinator.
“She was impressed enough with my resume that she asked if another (Benchmark) location wanted to take on an intern. … I didn’t know they opened up another intern position for me until before I left (at the end of the internship). They were telling me that’s how it happened. I was like, ‘That’s crazy.’ I didn’t even know that.”
Engineering wasn’t a career familiar to Wong.
“I’m the first of my family to be born in America. I’m Chinese, so my parents are the classic Chinese parents,” said Wong of her hard-working mom and dad, who owned a Chinese restaurant and encouraged her to choose a well-paying career. “I was the kid at the restaurant.”
When Honeywell stopped by her middle school and talked about all the types of engineers that worked there, “I just got interested, and I’ve been good at math since I was young. My parents were like, you should go into a STEM major.”
It’s what she did, choosing GCU after a campus tour and after a friend decided to enroll here.
“I really liked the community,” she said, then, “I was told an aerospace program is going to start here. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s perfect!’”
Like her parents advised, she did choose a well-paying career. But she also chose to study something that has fascinated her since that day in middle school.
“I really like understanding how things work. It’s really satisfying when everything clicks into place of, 'Oh! This is how this affects that part and the whole thing works together.'”
She seemed well-suited for her 13-week foray as a process intern at Benchmark, a longtime partner with GCU whose employees have served on the President's STEM advisory board and the Center for Workforce Development advisory board.
The company also collaborates with students, through their professors, on capstone projects – those end-of-college projects that showcase what students have learned over their four years in the program.
GCU has been working with Benchmark on capstone projects since 2021. The company has sponsored five capstone projects, including one that students are currently working on, said assistant professor Samantha Russell, director of interdisciplinary capstones. She knows of three alumni working at Benchmark who mentor capstone projects.
“Benchmark Electronics is a valuable partner for the work we do for and with our students. Both GCU and Benchmark Electronics foster innovation in the creation of graduates of excellence and character steeped in the entrepreneurial mindset.”
And of course, Benchmark invests in students through internships – "They hire interns most every summer," Russell said – and, ultimately, full-time positions.
“The uniqueness of the (Benchmark internship) program primarily focuses on the application and experience the students get while working on the factory floor in Tempe,” said Nicholas Wilshire, GCU Employer Relations program manager. “The mentorship they get is great, and the students who come out of the program are extremely well-rounded.”
During her internship on the New Product Introduction team at Benchmark Precision Technologies, Wong sat in on weekly meetings with Benchmark headquarters, met with other interns to share their experiences, and scheduled which machines on the shopfloor were supposed to run at what time.
She also created 3D models on SOLIDWORKS, a 3D, computer-aided design (CAD) software program used to create and develop products.
One of her projects was to reverse-engineer a diagram, “so it was a drawing of a part that does not have a 3D model,” Wong said. “We made a 3D model for it.”
And she had the chance to speak with supply chain managers and employees in precision technology, “just a bunch of different departments to know how the entire company works as a system and all the steps that manufacturing goes through.”
Wong particularly enjoyed her time with the New Product Introduction team to see the process a part goes through, from design, to modeling, to programming, fixturing, production and shipment.
The internship, she said, “definitely gave me way more insight into the actual process of engineering, because a lot of the aerospace classes I’m taking right now are very theoretical and not actually put into practice. Knowing the actual design process and all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, before they even machine a part, was really helpful.”
One of the final projects she worked on alongside another intern was using a computer numerical control machine to create a sign for the Benchmark team to hang in that team’s workshop.
It’s the kind of work she does now in her job with Lux Precision Manufacturing, a precision machine shop at GCU’s Canyon Ventures started by GCU alumnus Weston Smith. The company produces and prototypes aerospace, defense, medical and semiconductor parts.
She is the only engineering student worker at Lux Manufacturing.
“So definitely, I’ve kept in track with the machining area of engineering,” said Wong, president of the Grand Canyon Aerospace club, which is working on building a flight simulator from a crashed airplane.
“We’re welding, we’re cutting, we’re designing,” said Wong excitedly.
She dreams of one day working in aerospace or propulsion engineering, which involves designing the thrusters on rocket or plane engines.
Like in her Benchmark internship and work with Lux Manufacturing, she wants to continue to be where she can weld, cut and design. Where she can discover how things tick.
Where she can go one more.
GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults can be reached at lana.sweetenshults@gcu.edu or at 602-639-7901.
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